Saturday, November 1, 2008

I bought a little USB video capture device recently called EasyCap which at the time seemed to be cheap and offer sometinghat others didn't, but as I discovered not all that glitters is gold - this device is hopeless for audio. They should rename it to EasyCrap.

I tried it on two of my computers and while I could get video I could not get any audio on the bundled ULead free WinAVI video capture software tools.

I spent hours and hours trying to work out what the hell was going on.

Turns out that the device uses Microsoft's generic USB Audio drivers and these have some sort of conflict with Realtek's onboard audio chips.

Just my luck that both my computers (laptop and desktop) happen to have Realtek chips :(

But while it rules out the free software, I have found that AMCap works well (although it unfortunately is not free and limited to a certain amount of video - about 10 minutes worth). The software costs about $50.

So while EasyCap might sound like a cheap option, if you have Realtek audio, consider the add-on cost of software that actually works with this thing.

This blog is about my experience using Microsoft Windows, in particular reviews of some of the client side applications and PC hardware I use, find useful and comparisons between software programs. I'm currently using Windows Vista at the office, Windows 7 on the road and Windows XP at home.